Effective Ways to use SEO for Lead Generation

To generate high-quality lead is a very difficult challenge in digital marketing. To address this challenge, there is a powerful tool in the digital marketing arsenal that you can easily take advantage to drive your inbound lead generation campaign which we refer to as the Search Engine Optimizer (SEO). SEO is not just a lead generation strategy but also an important traffic channel in any online lead generation plan. Hence you can optimize your SEO strategy in compliance with your lead generation goals and objectives and implement it to improve the number of potential customers who visit your website.

Below are some effective ways to use SEO for a better lead generation result:

(1) Optimize your homepage and inner content:

To optimize your homepage and inner content, you have to do the following:

(a) Finding the right keywords is very important to gaining the attention of search engines and attracting more audience but using a bunch of keywords that have a lower search volume is always better than having one keyword with a high one.

(b) Backlinks are the incoming hyperlinks from one webpage to another site, one of the best ways to do this is by spying on the competitor, by using the backlink checker tools. A backlink checker may not give you a complete overview of a URL’s backlink profile, therefore you use a few different tools and collate the result.

(c) The use of longtail keywords and keyword phrases that are specific to your brand can also be a good means to optimize your homepage. Using longtail keywords enables customer who is searching for an information on your website to locate it easily, they keep it specific and local. When you are using these longtail keywords throughout your website, search engines will point them towards you.

(d) Creating a website that looks great on desktop but all over the place on other devices is not too good. It is important your website is responsive, make sure your page is sleek, both in designs and usability.

(2) Optimize for mobile users:

In recent years, SEO is rapidly focusing on mobile devices to get results. This is because people spend more time on their mobile devices searching for information on various products and services. They use them to conduct more mobile searches with an intent to buy. further research shows that 50% of mobile visitors have actually visited a local store within a day and that 78% of local mobile searches result in purchases, this proves that having a mobile optimized website can actually increase your business bottom line. With a mobile responsive website, your chances of attracting high quality traffic are much higher.

(3) In order to use SEO for your lead generation efforts, you must first understand the keyword “user Intent”.

There are basically five types of user intent, they are

–*know (Understand a certain topic, product or service)

*Do (Execute a certain activity online)

*Buy (purchase a product or service)

*Web (Visit a webpage or website)

*Local (visit a local establishment)

(4) Get Local:

Most of your SEO traffic come from local sources. To improve your local SEO scores with some Google tools and other content optimization tools. You will need to check through your content and ensure your internal and backlinks are all working. Also, claim your “Google My Business” page, this will provide a second source of appropriate content that closely relates to your site.

(5) Avoid SEO Errors:

One important step to take in auditing your homepage is to check for technical SEO errors. Try searching for your target keywords and compare where you rank to your competitors. Analyse your site for mobile friendliness. Make sure your content is displaying online in the most advantageous way possible.

COMMON BRANDING MISTAKES

There are common branding mistakes companies often make that decreases their business ability to communicate with their target audience. There are certain companies that have create great brand image over the years, and one such company is the beverage giant, Coca-Cola. Their distinctive and obvious red and white lettering and powerful trademark make it impossible for anyone to confuse them for another soft drink manufacturer. The branding strategy of this great company will serve as a guide to small businesses who intend to grow and achieve great success soon.

What are the common branding mistakes that brands make that can impact the business negatively? Having carried out some research on this topic, I noticed that the following mistakes have been costly to small businesses.

Inability to identify brand strength:

As a beginner in a business, you cannot expect to have the same brand strength with a product which is already a market leader in that same environment. You must not expect your customers to suddenly recognise your product just like the market leader. Take for example the beverage company, Coca-cola, that has been in existence for over two centuries, imagine a budding beverage company that is new in the beverage business and wants to make Coca-cola is competitor, and starts copying its branding strategies, such a company may not last in that business. Some people already have these mentalities that all detergents are Omo, all cooking spices are Maggi, or noodles are Indomie. It is therefore wise to create a branding strategy by first defining and differentiating it from what is already existing in the market.

Failing to research the opposition.

When you research the opposition, it will help you understand what the established businesses in your industry have done, where they have failed and where they have succeeded. Then you know what branding strategies you can take advantage of. You should also carry out research on products, services, targets, audience, websites and social platforms.

Brand inconsistency:

Inconsistency has a negative impact on your brand, it brings about lack of trust and disloyalty. Companies like Coca-cola has been consistent in their branding for over 130 years. When you are consistent with your branding it will bring about familiarity, loyalty and credibility. Once your designer creates a brand style guide, the next thing you should be doing is to consistently follow the brand’s style guide on all your marketing campaigns across different channels, including your website, social networking profiles and printed materials.

If you’re not consistent, your brand will end up appearing unprofessional and lose identity, making your brand less trustworthy. Managing brand consistency across all marketing channels sets you apart from your competitors and helps you to accelerate the growth of your brand. A consistent identity for your brand will not only foster a sense of trust and comfort for potential customers, but it also plays a vital role in influencing your customers’ purchasing decision.

Careless changing of the brand logo:

It is important that you carry your audience or customers along, do not just suddenly change your logo feeling that your audience or customers should be able to know or recognise it as if it doesn’t matter. You have to carry them along so that they will know that there are changes already. Sometime ago, Gala, a leading sausage roll company, changed its wrapper without proper communication with its consumers, this didn’t go down well with the consumers as some of them taught Gala was out of production or the product available was fake. People were already used to and familiar with the old wrapper, immediately Consumers they switched over to the next best sausage-roll, Superbite, a product of chi limited, makers of Superbite. This brought a great loss to the makers of Gala.

Ignoring first impression:

There is a common saying that “first impressions last longer and matters a lot”. The first impression could be the product packaging design, the taste, the quality and the quantity which is the first point of contact between your brand and the customer. Your customers should be able to identify your product anywhere they go because its quality remains the same. Your packaging sells your brand, so if it is not well packaged, do not expect to make great sales in return.

Relying too much on Design trends:

Relying too much on design trends can make you to lose focus on the purpose and goals you are pursuing using your products. It can be easy to get swept up in what looks cool at the moment but remember that your brand will likely need to weather multiple waves of design trends without looking dated. It is advisable that you use design trends as a source of inspiration but not to rely on them too much when you want to redesign.

Using a vague copy to describe your brand:

Using a vague copy to describe your brand can be a major setback when it comes to positioning your brand in the market and distinguishing yourself from your competitors. To make your brand standout and unique, you have to understand what makes it unique and different from other existing brands. So many brands have been described wrongly for what they do not represent which in turn affects their sales.

Hiring an unprofessional Designer:

Nothing can hurt your brand worse than an amateur looking-logo. No matter if you feel OK with the logos of your graphic standards of your brand, it’s always worth taking the time and spending money to hire a professional graphic designer specializing in branding and logo development. Ask your designer to create a brand style guide that defines the colour palette, typography, visual style, imagery, etc., so you can follow it consistently on all your marketing channels.

Attaching Your Brand to the Wrong Things:

When it comes to branding, more is not more. In other words, use your company name and logo selectively and sparingly — especially when it comes to branded products, sponsorships, and events. When you attach your brand name to something, it should reflect and be compatible with your brand’s values and voice. When a brand partners with another company or product that doesn’t directly relate to or mesh well with their own message, it can seem inconsistent and untrustworthy to consumers.

The Marketing Power of Instagram

Marketing over the years, has been a major contributing factor to the growth of every businesses. It determines how far your product will reach its consumers/customers, hence the major reason why businesses depend on it for success.

Instagram as a trending social media platform has a lot of marketing power/strategies which we shall be looking at in this article to reveal the awesome marketing power of Instagram.

When Instagram started, it was a mere photo sharing app but now it has grown to leaps and bounds. According to research, there are over 500millions of Instagram users globally, which is still increasing on a daily basis. The thing about Instagram is that it gives the world what it wants to see by the sharing of photos and videos. Earlier, Individuals just use the app to share their personal pictures, but today businesses have started using Instagram to share all their update. This trend has increased as Instagram marketing represents a brand through pictures and celebrates its uniqueness with its audience.

Below is a chart showing a brief history of Instagram and its growth over the years.

If you are still wondering how powerful this platform is, well here are some statistics that will make you understand how powerful this platform has become.

Branded hashtags:

An evidence that Instagram users are extremely receptive to business and advertising content is the fact that approximately 70 percent of hashtags on Instagram are branded. The use of strong hashtags and stories is one of the marketing powers of Instagram. It has made Instagram one of the most powerful social media platforms. To increase the engagement rate of brands, users are encouraged to add hashtags to their posts and stories, as one recent study revealed that Instagram posts with at least one hashtag boast 12.6 percent more engagement than those without it.

It is possible to add up to 30 hashtags to each post, but brands should be careful not to overdo it, with up to 10 hashtags per post usually considered the optimum number. Brands should also take time to choose the most relevant hashtags, instead of just picking the most popular ones, because their posts could end up getting lost in a sea of other content. Also, if you include hashtags in your posts it will allow your brand to reach even those users who are not your followers. Another useful tool to use to make your audience grow is the Geo-tagging. With Geo-tagging, posts receiving 79 percent more engagements will be achievable.

Unending Increase of monthly users:

The total number of monthly Instagram users continues to grow at a steady rate of about 5 percent per quarter, even with more than 1 billion users as at june,2018, this platform still has more room for growth. Its users are growing more than Facebook and twitter whose monthly user base growth is just 3 percent and 1 percent respectively. This growth in Instagram users may continue until 2021, where user growth will later slow down after 2021 as the supply of potential new users will decline.

High engagement rate:

Instagram has engagement rates 15 times higher than Facebook and 20 times higher than twitter. Most business owners know that getting people to engage with your content is more important than simply having views. For them to have this high engagement they do that using Instagram, and that is by having an Instagram account and advertising most, if not all their products on Instagram.

Business Inclined:

80% of Instagram users follow at least one business. One of the major challenges of modern digital advertising is that most consumers, particularly younger ones are getting tired of having ads served to them on social media. This kind of experience is not observed on Instagram because 80 percent of accounts follow one or more businesses.

Beautiful and Attractive images:

Instagram allows users to edit photographs with a variety of different filters. Currently, twenty distinct filters are offered and they all produce distinct visual effects from cooling to desaturation to extreme contrast. Because of these beautiful pictures created on Instagram, it helps the user to gain more attention on their pages than they get while using other platforms. Also, with the introduction of carousel to Instagram, posting of images on Instagram is now more creative and more attractive

Easy to use:

Instagram is very simple to use and has the potentials to get your name and links from millions of potential customers very quickly. When you first set up your account, you are allowed to include one link in your profile. Be sure to list your main website here because your user name will hyperlink to your profile page where your main website is prominently displayed. You choose your user name carefully because you cannot change it if you make a mistake.

Connection with other platforms:

When you are about to post or share a post, you have the option to have it automatically posted immediately to Facebook and twitter as well. Here is where the power of social media can really explode your visibility and business. Statistics has shown that no doubt Instagram has a very strong marketing and hence, the reason why its most used by consumers, and from all that has been explained above we now know the reason why.

This also will be further explained in the chart below:

You can observe from the chart the high number of users, the level of engagements, the increase in the number of likes, time spent on Instagram by the users which is very much compared to users of other social media platforms. Even with these achievements, the marketing power and the growth of Instagram seems not to be ending or taking a turn, therefore I will advise you tap into this wonderful social media giant of our time and apply its marketing strategies in your businesses. We have talked about these strategies and marketing hacks in previous articles on our page, read them and apply them in your business so you too can share your own success story in years to come.